An acclaimed early work by Olivier Assayas, the long-unavailable, deeply felt coming-of-age drama Cold Water can at last be seen in the United States. Drawing from his own youthful experiences, Assayas revisits the outskirts of Paris in the early 1970s, telling the story of teenage lovers Gilles (Cyprien Fouquet) and Christine (Virginie Ledoyen), whose rebellions against family and society threaten to tear them apart. The visceral realism of the movie's narrative and the near experimentalism of its camera work come together effortlessly thanks to a rock soundtrack that vividly evokes the period. With one of the most memorable party sequences ever committed to film as a centerpiece, Cold Water is a heartbreaking immersion in the emotional tumult of being young.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION:

• New 4K digital restoration, supervised by director Olivier Assayas, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• New interview with Assayas
• New interview with cinematographer Denis Lenoir
• Excerpt from a 1994 French television program on the film featuring Assayas and actors Virginie Ledoyen and Cyprien Fouquet
• New English subtitle translation
• PLUS: An essay by critic Girish Shambu

Cronenfly wrote:More Olivier Assayas on the way: the man himself spilled the beans at a screening in Toronto of L'eau froide (Cold Water, 1994) Thursday night that the film is forthcoming from Criterion, probably in 2018. The movie has apparently had a checkered distribution history and issues with clearances for its extensive soundtrack, but it sounds like all that has finally been resolved. The screening was supposed to be of a new digital restoration but ended up being a 35mm print instead, so I'm guessing the release is still a ways off. Hope this bodes well for the rest of his early titles becoming more widely available, whether through Criterion or another label. I'm assuming Personal Shopper is in the pipeline too, so it might be a while before Criterion gets around to any of his other films.

Great news, as that's a fantastic, horribly underseen gem. Here's hoping whatever shifted to make it finally available also applies to Denis' US Go Home and Akerman's Portrait of a Young Girl. . . from the same series.

I've never seen the TV version of L'Eau froide, La Page blanche, and don't know how different it might be, but that's a possible inclusion.

Cronenfly wrote:More Olivier Assayas on the way: the man himself spilled the beans at a screening in Toronto of L'eau froide (Cold Water, 1994) Thursday night that the film is forthcoming from Criterion, probably in 2018. The movie has apparently had a checkered distribution history and issues with clearances for its extensive soundtrack, but it sounds like all that has finally been resolved. The screening was supposed to be of a new digital restoration but ended up being a 35mm print instead, so I'm guessing the release is still a ways off. Hope this bodes well for the rest of his early titles becoming more widely available, whether through Criterion or another label. I'm assuming Personal Shopper is in the pipeline too, so it might be a while before Criterion gets around to any of his other films.

GREAT news, this has never been issued on DVD in the U.S. and I've been hoping for a decent HD release for some time.

I also love L'eau froide (Cold Water), and its got a great lead role for Virginie Ledoyen, years before she was another 'unattainable free spirit object of fascination for the male lead' in The Beach! (The two things that I'd really hope for in a edition of this film if at all possible would be that television version of the film mentioned above and an interview with the actress) I sent foggyeyes a copy of the film years ago and we had a brief private message conversation about it. I'll copy my thoughts about the film at the time here:

I remember that L'eau froide did not leave much of an impression on me the first time I saw it, but I found it grows even better on repeated viewings. Watching it again while I was recording the film I kept thinking that it has influenced many French films since, which have tried to create minimalist or kitchen sink type depictions of teenage life. The one that comes to mind at the moment is Clubbed To Death, which features an central scene of the main couple dancing/making out to the title track (which later became famous in itself as the signature track used in The Matrix), that feels very similar to the one in the Assayas film.

Also a film like The Dream Life of Angels seems to focus on the vagabond theme, the strange wish for rootlessness as a route to purity and self discovery. Though of course Varda's Vagabond is probably the ultimate example of this (and maybe it all goes back to Boudu!)

However the more supposedly 'influenced' films I see, the more I admire L'eau froide which feels much more full of meaning, perhaps because it sketches its scanty plot in such a delicate manner. I like the way that the events remain completely grounded while at the same time suggesting some of the apocalyptic 'end of the world' attitude of children becoming adults, and an ending that feels both realistic and mythical

SpoilerShow

(as Christine sheds her clothes to make love before disappearing to an unknown fate).

Last edited by colinr0380 on Sat Jun 16, 2018 5:33 am, edited 2 times in total.

Quick follow-up: Assayas said at the Clean Q and A that some of his other early titles are coming as well from Criterion, but also that a few remain tied up. Disorder and Winter's Child screened in new digital restorations, so they seem definite possibilities, while Paris Awakens and A New Life are pretty unlikely for now.

Winter's Child looked great, while Disorder had a weird greyish-blue look/cast throughout that does not seem consistent with what few images from the film I've seen online. Don't know if this is revisionism on the part of Assayas, the fault of those doing the restoration, or if this is how the film is meant to look, but it seemed almost Thief extreme to my eyes.

Cronenfly wrote:Quick follow-up: Assayas said at the Clean Q and A that some of his other early titles are coming as well from Criterion, but also that a few remain tied up. Disorder and Winter's Child screened in new digital restorations, so they seem definite possibilities, while Paris Awakens and A New Life are pretty unlikely for now.

Winter's Child looked great, while Disorder had a weird greyish-blue look/cast throughout that does not seem consistent with what few images from the film I've seen online. Don't know if this is revisionism on the part of Assayas, the fault of those doing the restoration, or if this is how the film is meant to look, but it seemed almost Thief extreme to my eyes.

It makes sense that the two you've cited are also coming, as Criterion tends to license in a batch from MK2. These were the titles I had dreamed would even merely show up on Hulu or Filmstruck, so that's killer news. I've only seen Disorder, Winter's Child and Cold Water on the French discs without subs, but the cooler color timing for Disorder sounds right (I remember a lot of low-or-unlit nighttime interiors).

I'll be traveling from Montreal to Toronto expressly for Paris Awakens and hopefully again the following week for A New Life, as the films are absolutely impossible to see otherwise. I think Paris Awakens is with Gaumont but I'm not entirely sure.

Olivier Assayas' Cold Water Receives 4K Restoration and First-Ever US Theatrical Release in April
Posted February 9, 2018 04:24 PM by Webmaster

Janus FilmsJanus Films issued an official press release today announcing the upcoming theatrical release of award-winning French director Olivier Assayas' Cold Water (1994). The film received a stunning 4K restoration and will roll-out in theaters throughout the US beginning April 2018, following the March 9 premiere with the Austin Film Society (AFS). The film, which focuses on star-crossed adolescents in 1970s France, launched Olivier Assayas into the international spotlight-- as well as its star Virginie Ledoyen-- and has been considered one of the great undistributed films of the 1990s.

A Blu-ray release is expected to be announced later his year.

Janus Films President Peter Becker said, "Cold Water is one of the great missing films, a nearly unknown tour de force by Olivier Assayas. If it had ever been properly released, it would certainly be considered one of Olivier's masterpieces. With an uncanny fluidity, this deeply honest coming of age tale fuses wrenching emotional realism and a lush, expressionistic visual style driven by one of the most amazing soundtracks in any film. The uncleared music that is so central to the film's success is also what kept the film from being seen for so long. We've been hoping for years to be able to bring this unseen stunner to theatrical audiences who never got a chance to see it when it was first made. We're incredibly proud to be presenting it now in a gorgeous new 4K restoration. It has certainly been worth the wait!"

Director Olivier Assayas said about the restoration, "The premiere of the restored COLD WATER is a huge satisfaction, and the result of years of concern, struggle, anger, resilience... Ever since I shot this film in 24 days in December '93--and it opened at the Cannes Film Festival in May 94--it has had a great life of its own, traveling the world and screening at most major festivals. Unluckily, its access to general release has been plagued by misfortune after misfortune."

"So, here it is, we cleared the French rights, we cleared the international rights, we cleared the music rights, the film will have its long overdue US release," continued Assayas. "Let's go back to square one. This is a movie about kids in the 70's. They look very much like myself and my friends at the time. This was a small film by any standard, we made it with no money at all, during a freezing cold winter, most of the cast were kids with no experience in film at all. It was my first shot at some sort of cinematic auto-biography and I saw it as an experiment. It taught me that it is by taking chances, by trying side roads that you open up new spaces for yourself. In many ways COLD WATER changed my filmmaking life, and for that reason it always has had a special place in my heart."

Golden Globe Award-winning director Assayas will be present at the AFS Cinema on March 9 and March 11 for post-screening discussions at several of his films, including COLD WATER, Something in the Air, Paris Awakens, and Irma Vep. Additional films in the series include Summer Hours, Clouds of Sils Maria, and Personal Shopper. The series is co-presented by UniFrance. Assayas can also been seen in Austin as a featured speaker along with AFS founder and Artistic Director Richard Linklater at this year's SXSW Conference on March 11. Tickets for all AFS programs must be purchased at http://www.austinfilm.org" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; or at the AFS Cinema box office.

Janus Films will release the film theatrically starting April 2018, following the premiere in Austin. Additional dates and venues can be found on http://www.janusfilms.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; .

Assayas on the continued support he received, "I have to thank those who step by step have been fighting - through the years - to give this film a new life. First and foremost Sylvie Barthet who was the original line producer and has been working with me ever since, as co-producer of most of my films. This has been her crusade. Nothing would have been possible if the rights to the films had not ended up in the catalogue of Orange, curated by Sergueï Obolensky who has been incredibly helpful, patient and generous. But then it's all thanks to everybody at Janus Films & Criterion Collection they have been involved in this process for years, even at a time when we thought there was no credible way to untangle this knot, and their faith, their unwavering support, has kept the project alive."

Olivier Assayas is one of the world's most acclaimed directors. He is currently finishing a film called NON-FICTION starring Juliette Binoche, Guillaume Canet and Vincent Macaigne. More recently, he won the Best Director prize at Cannes in 2016 for PERSONAL SHOPPER, the 2nd of his collaborations with Kristen Stewart. His first was CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA which also starred Juliette Binoche and won Stewart several awards, including Best Actress from the New York Film Critics Circle. Starting out as a painter then a television writer, Assayas began making his own films after pursuing his passion for global cinema as a member of the editorial staff of Cahiers du Cinema from 1980-1985. It was Assayas' passion for Hong Kong cinema (and his coverage of it in the Cahiers) that opened the doors for the Western cinephile audience's discovery and appreciation of the Hong Kong studio system. Assayas' interest in globalizing culture, technology and the place of art and artistic expression are consistent themes in his complex and varied body of work. He has worked with some of the most accomplished actors of his time; frequent collaborators include Juliette Binoche, Maggie Cheung, Kristen Stewart, Jeanne Balibar, Virginie Ledoyen and Charles Berling. His mini-series CARLOS earned him a Golden Globe Award for Best Television Mini-Series, and his film SUMMER HOURS was named one of the "Best Films of the 21st Century (so far)", by the New York Times.

I was at the premiere of the restoration and Assayas spoke in more detail about the situation. After the film got accepted to Cannes, PolyGram acquired the international rights through its new "classics" division. But that division was shut down almost immediately thereafter (after its founders left, IIRC) and the rights remained with PolyGram, which no longer cared; a few years later PolyGram was sold to Universal, which cared even less. The rights eventually reverted to the original producers, but as the music clearances weren't perpetual, they all had to be redone, which was a long and costly process—not surprisingly, if you've seen the movie!

I read somewhere that PolyGram financed the film (and really the French TV series that gave birth to it) in order to generate revenue for their music holdings, and yet most (if not all) of the music here seems to come from other labels: Rolling Stone Records (album cover for Exile on Main Street), Warner Bros. Records (Alice Cooper's "School's Out"), Columbia Records (Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door," Joplin's cover of "Me and Bobby McGhee"), etc. Maybe PolyGram owned the European rights for these?

Anyway, the 4k restoration looked excellent. Setting aside the fact that it was conceived (and encouraged) as something close to autobiographical, the plot and conflicts are so universal, the film could have been set anywhere, but placed in a Parisian suburb in 1972, the movie plays like a massive hangover. After it was over, I kept thinking how the same youthful traits that made the idealism and rebellion of the '60s counterculture possible probably made the narcissism and solipsism associated with the '70s look inevitable. "Cold Water" indeed.

Sony Music co-financed the series, but I don't see any indication of PolyGram's involvement at that stage. Apparently in France music clearances for television are covered by a blanket agreement with the labels and publishers, unlike films for cinema where they have to be worked out on a song-by-song basis. So basically the filmmakers could use whatever they wanted on the soundtrack.

The artwork looks a bit strange for this movie. Could have been a Philippe Gandrieux artwork for his very David Lynch'ian "La Vie nouvelle"... ("La Vie Nouvelle" could be by the way a nice addition to the Criterion collection)
regarding the music; I think that John Lennon - although uncredited is also on the soundtrack (playing guitar and backing vocals). It seems that a song from Elephant Memory's Band (their own 1972's album) is in this movie (if I remember well...)

well, I hope that "Clean" will come one day in the Criterion collection. Maggie Cheung is amazing and mesmerizing (love the ending scene with a Yoko Ono career (just love Maggie's voice better... ). Great Nick Nolte. And a stunning photography. I was kind of "away" this movie when it went in Cannes and came out for its theatrical release, but now, with or without its prices at festivals I consider this as one of Assayas's best movie.

I saw Cold Water on the big screen a few weeks back and found it very enjoyable, one of the strongest Assayas films I've seen. I'm intrigued by this release, but don't know the extras seem all that gripping. If the DP gets into the staging and lighting of the party scene, that could be informative. I'm sure the Assayas interview will be good, but he gives so many interviews that one wonders if it will cover new ground.

I really loved this film, definitely my favourite out of all the Assayas films that I've seen. It's a shame that Criterion didn't include the shorter TV cut, La Page blanche, as it would have been interesting to see how Assayas managed to cut 30 mins from this!

Are any of the other films in the Tous les garçons et les filles de leur âge series available with English subtitles? I see that there's a 20 year old OOP DVD of Téchiné's Wild Reeds, but searches for a few of the others haven't proved rewarding

You can find copies of Akerman's masterpiece Portrait of a Young Girl in Brussels at the End of the 1960s floating around with fan subs, and about half a dozen more episodes without (the ones by Mazuy, Dahan, Kahn, Barbosa as well as the short versions of Assayas and Téchiné), but nothing official that I'm aware of. It's a shame the series hasn't had any kind of DVD release, as it'd make a brilliant box set. I get the impression that music rights have made the cost untenable (each film is structured around one or more popular songs of the era, and we all know what record labels are like with those copyright $$$).

Just floored by this - a case of expectations built up by years of unavailability (in the States at least) not only being met, but exceeded.

I like that the class issues are kept fairly understated and that the adults are not painted as entirely unsympathetic, despite the kids doing their best to do so. László Szabó is wonderful in his one scene at expressing frustration and disappointment with his son while also seeming not to realize that perhaps he needs to bridge the emotional gulf as much as Gilles does. Likewise, the confrontation between Christine's mother and Gilles outside the party manages to make her worry palpable. Her boyfriend, even after throwing a homophobic insult at Gilles, comes across as someone willing to push aside his work and ego to help find a girl who has caused him no end of grief.

And that party: what an incredible sequence. There's not much I can add to the praise heaped here and elsewhere, though I would like single out a few moments that I found especially well done: the way the CCR song is restarted (something we all do, right?, when we get a particular rush from the way a song begins); the way "Virginia Plain" fades as Gilles and Christine run down the hill away from the party; and "Janitor of Lunacy" playing over the morning after, with that tracking shot moving behind the windows in the chateau.

I haven't had a bad experience with an Assayas film yet, though I still have many to see. I rewatched Irma Vep last year for the first time since it was in theaters - I had liked it well enough then, but pretty much adore it now. (And for some reason I was struck this time by how often we see people entering and leaving rooms - near perpetual motion.) Summer Hours struck me an emotional masterpiece from the first time I saw it and probably ranks with Cold Water as my favorite at the moment.

I really need to see demonlover again, preferably under better conditions than the old dvd I have kicking around here somewhere. (Connie Nielsen was tops, though, that I remember clearly.) I found a lot to like in Boarding Gate (the camera work, music choices, Argento, and an absolutely phenomenal final shot/end credits) but ultimately its pleasures for me were mostly surface. I feel like Clean is underrated, despite Cheung's Cannes win. It manages to meld the emotional honesty of the quieter films with the globetrotting aspects of demonlover & Boarding Gate. The scene of the kid sneaking money from his grandfather and going out into the city to buy comics set to "Taking Tiger Mountain" is incredibly moving to me in how it conveys the boy's solitude within hotel room as well was his fearlessness in venturing out into a foreign city all on his own (and I love casualness with which he lies to his grandfather when he returns). Loved the use of "The Lost Day" from On Land for the shooting up scene, with the factory illuminating the nighttime skyline.

I was surprised to like Disorder as much as I did give that the reputation of those first several films tend to get dwarfed by Cold Water's position as an almost re-debut. (Haven't watched Winter's Child in the Arrow set yet.) Bonus points for including two Pere Ubu songs.

Very much looking forward to catching up with Clouds of Sils Maria, Personal Shopper, and Carlos now.

Having seen this after Something in the Air, I realized Assayas nods back to this in his later film. I really like both, and having just seen Denis' US Go Home I'm interested in seeing how good Wild Reeds and Akerman's episode are considering both Denis and Assayas made absolutely amazing films.